Abstract

The purpose of the thesis is to determine an “activation gradient” able to develop the generative
energy of a process of participated planning in conditions of indeterminateness.
The research is based on a critical re-reading of four personal experiences and an intuition: the
margin of energy, i.e. the funding element of participated processes, may express itself at its best
along specific trajectories.
The ex post analysis of those experiences evidences that the “institutionalisation” of the process
drained off their generative energy.
Involvement and sharing produced compromises that alienated the project from its authors,
whilst its institutionalisation made participation red tape. Which the reasons of this
ineffectiveness? This is a Khunian “anomaly”, unexplainable through existing theories: it requires
a new paradigm.
This anomaly brings in indeterminateness as the “planning engine” that stimulates innovation
and involvement, favouring the activation of self-regenerating free spaces and processes. The
“activation gradient” was then introduced to measure the paths of creative energy within an
interactive process.
The indeterminateness of the project, preventing an excess of compromises, avoids civic
alienation whilst keeping alive participation through a longer dialectic process.
Keeping margins means the continuity of involvement even when facing red tape paths, through
the use of self-organisational practises giving life to structural subjects as “embryos of civitas”.